BRUTALLY REAL `SCHINDLER'S LIST' DEPICTS HORROR, HEROISM OF WAR

Gene SiskelCHICAGO TRIBUNE

Our Flick of the Week is Steven Spielberg's Holocaust drama "Schindler's List," and by now you've already heard it called "the movie of the year" by critics and news magazines. That's my feeling as well. What Spielberg has done in this Holocaust story is simply and forcefully place us there. In Krakow. In the ghetto.

Why didn't the Jews fight back? Many did, but the answer is there in the first documentary-style lines across the screen: Poland fell to the Germans in just two weeks. What chance did the Jews have?

Their chance, in the case of Krakow's Jews, took an unlikely form-that of Czech-German Catholic businessman Oskar Schindler, who would end up buying the safety of more than 1,100 Jews who worked for him at no salary during the war, making pots and pans and, later, weapons. He traded his profits for their lives in the most enduring transaction he would ever consummate.

Spielberg has cast his film with mostly unknowns. A beefed-up Liam Neeson is Schindler, and Ben Kingsley is the composite Jewish liaison to the workers.

I'm not surprised that Spielberg was able to capture the heroism of Schindler; so many of his movies are about the better part of mankind. What is surprising is how well Spielberg captures the horror, moving his camera with the fury of a combat photographer on the run. Of course this film had to be made in black and white.

Some of the violence is difficult to watch, but there is a story with genuine tension that runs throughout the crimes. Traditional movie tension is supplied by true incidents of guns that may or may not fire, trains that may or may not arrive in the intended place. And then there is that magical ending that came to Spielberg with only five weeks remaining in the shoot. That you must see. Don't cheat yourself.

"Schindler's List" is playing at the Water Tower Theater. Rated R. (STAR)(STAR)(STAR)(STAR)

Flicks Picks guide

- (equals) New this week

- BEETHOVEN'S 2ND (Chestnut Station and outlying). A lackluster sequel that rips off the story line of "101 Dalmatians" and includes an unbelievably inappropriate scene of a teenage girl being threatened with a sex act. All this in a kids' film about lovable St. Bernards. Other than giving us a chance to ogle four cute pups and two grown dogs, there isn't much comedy or charm here. PG. (STAR)(STAR)

- THE PELICAN BRIEF (Burnham Plaza, McClurg Court, Webster Place and outlying). A disappointing thriller from Alan J. Pakula, who has created sort of an "All the President's Men" lite. Using the same Washington turf and investigative byplay as his earlier brilliant film about journalists tracking the President, Pakula spins the John Grisham yarn of a law school student (Julia Roberts) who develops a theory about why two Supreme Court justices were murdered. Right there credibility was strained, and Roberts does nothing to sell the story. And Denzel Washington is only marginally better as a reporter on the case, as well. Running two hours and 20 minutes the film seems long by a half hour. PG-13. (STAR)(STAR)